.p.357Newman Robert Glass describes his ambitious and intriguingfirst
book, Working Emptiness: Toward a Third Reading ofEmptiness in
Buddhism and Postmodern Thought, as an exercisein "postmodern
theology" whose ultimate purpose is to helpdevelop a "Buddhist
constructive philosophy" out of a newreading of Buddhist discourse
about emptiness (suunyataa)(pp. 4-5). In the service of this new
reading, Class deploysa staggering array of thinkers, texts, and
topics, bothWestern and Asian. Among Western figures, he draws,
interalia, from Heidegger, Cadamer, Altizer, Derrida, Mark Taylor,and
Deleuze and Guattari; Buddhist fiegures includeNaagaarjuna, the
authors of the Tathaagatagarbha literatureand the tantras, the
Sixth Chan Patriarch, Dogen, andNishitani Keiji, not to mention a
large number of modernBuddhist scholars. Fields he considers
include metaphysics,logic, psychology, aesthetics, physics, and
ethics. Hisanalysis is condensed and complex: discussions of
postmodernideas flow into discourses on Buddhism and back out
again.There are more threads linking his various subjects than
canpossibly be untied in a brief review, so what follows,focusing
primarily on Glass' approach to Buddhism, must beseen as only one,
partial approach to this multifaceted book. Glass' central argument
is that there are two readings,or "workings," of emptiness that have
dominated Buddhist andWestern scholarly analysis of the concept: the
first, whichbears a striking resemblance to Heidegger's insistence
thatrelease into unthought nothingness clears the ground
for"presencing" Being, sees emptiness as "co-dependent arising"and
therefore as moving beyond mere negation into a rhetoricof mutuality
and interdependence; the second, which isclosely analogous to Mark
Taylor's playful, endless Derrideandeferral of meaning in favor of
"difference" or "nothing,"sees emptiness as "dependent arising, " a
negation of allpresence and the denial of all possible positions. For
Glass,each of these workings of emptiness proceeds from a "logic
ofnegation" that reflects a preoccupation with issues
of"thinking" and "not thinking, " often at the expense of theaffective
and ethical dimensions of human existence. Theseareas, Glass
believes, are addressed most fully in the "thirdworking of emptiness,"
(found, e.g., in the Tathaagatagarbhaliterature and the writings of
Dogen), which proceeds,philosophically through a "logic of
subtraction" andpractically through a meditative "burning off of
outflowingtendencies" (p. 88), to reveal an original "essence"
that,more than the presence or absence of thought, is a state
ofpositive desire, compassionate engagement, and
"fieldsensitivity, " like that described by Deleuze and Cuattari.p.358
Rhetorically, Glass' argument is classically Buddhist: heposits two
"extreme" positions ("presence" and "difference"),analyzes the
short-comings of each, then suggests a thirdapproach ("essence")
that avoids the pitfalls of the twoinitial positions and thereby
finds the "middle" ¢w thoughthe latter is not a metaphor invoked by
Glass. If we believetradition, this style of rhetoric was
originated by theBuddha himself in the seminal Dhammacakkappavattana
Sutta,and has been echoed by countless Buddhists since,
includingNaagaarjuna and the philosophers of the Indian Yogaacaara
andChinese Tientai schools. In structure, therefore," Glass'analysis
is indisputably an example of "Buddhist theology."Furthermore, his
reading of emptiness from the "essence"perspective of the
Tathaagatagarbha literature and Dogen isvaluable not only as a
theological stance, but as animportant reminder that `suunyataa
truly is "empty," an open,profoundly contested term among Buddhists,
which cannot berestricted to a single, canonical meaning, and which
is,furthermore, inseparable from Buddhist practice. Moreover,Glass'
alignment of various Buddhist workings of emptinesswith a number
of perspectives adopted in the modern andpostmodern West adds
suggestive echoes to his arguments, andoften reflects an appreciation
for the nuances of bothBuddhist and postmodern thought
sometimes lacking incomparisons between the two. At the same time,
there are anumber of problems raised by Glass' analysis. One of the
mostbasic is that the stances he identifies as the
three"workings" of emptiness appear to be rather
arbitraryconstructions, based as much on Class' reading of
modernscholars' interpretations of Buddhist texts as on the
textsthemselves, and even when the texts themselves are cited,Glass
seldom provides the ideas in them with any context.This rather
ahistorical approach makes it simpler to "find"the three workings
within the tradition, but leaves one lessthan fully confident that
the categories are naturallyyielded by ¢w rather than projected
into ¢w the texts.Especially problematic is the distinction
between"co-dependent arising" and "dependent arising" (each
apossible translation of the Sanskrit pratiitya-samutpaada)that Glass
uses to separate the first and second workings.This distinction
requires considerably stronger philologicaland historical justification
than he has provided, and mighthave been more compelling
philosophically if it had been setmore firmly within the context of
traditional categories ofanalysis, such as the two truths or the
major schoolsMadhyamaka. Glass never makes it entirely clear
who, ifanyone, might actually exemplify one of these workings to
theexclusion of the other. Does Nishitani represent the firstworking
and Naagaarjuna the second? I am not certain thatGlass believes so,
and if he does, I question whether eitherassignment can be easily
justified. This, in turn, raisessuspicions about the validity of the
distinction, other thanas an ideal construction that may actually be
inspiredp.359by differences between Western thinkers (e.g., Heidegger
andDerrida or Taylor) rather than among Buddhists themselves.
Furthermore, while Glass' interweaving of Westernphilosophical
terms with those of Buddhism is suggestive andinteresting, I wish he
had kept the two more distinct. Forexample, his implication that
the first working ofemptiness, as co-dependent arising, entails
something likeHeidegger's notion of "presence" never is fully
explained,and is especially puzzling whin one
considersthat the affirmation of mutuality and
interdependenceentailed by emptiness rarely seems to have connoted
forBuddhists (especially Maadhyamikas) the "presence"
ofanything like "Being" as Hediegger understands it. Also,Glass'
equation of the aporeitic Naagaarjunian diatlectic ofthe second
working with Derrida's or Taylor's notions of"difference" or
"nothing" is unproblematic only if oneremoves the Maadhyamika
texts from their religious milieu ¢wa move Glass himself, with his
apprecation for "practice,"should be reluctant to make. Potentially
confusing, too, ishis identification of the third working of
emptiness with"essence" and the promotion of "desire," given that
mostBuddhists, even theoreticians of Tathaagatagarbha,
deny"essence" (aatman, svabhaava) and usually assert
that"desire" (.t.rr.sna, raaga) is a major source of suffering.Glass
apparently intends these words in a Deleuzian ratherthan a Buddhist
sense (see pp.83 ff.) , but here, aselsewhere, the importation
of crucial Western terms intoBuddhist discussions may raise more
problems than it solves. Finally, Glass fails to show convincingly
tha the "thirdworking" of emptiness uniquely address the affective
andethical concerns he feels ae slighted to one degree oranother
by the first two approaches. On the one hand, it ispossible to cite
practitioners we might associate with thefirst two workings ¢w for
example, Naagaarjuna, Candrakiirti,`Saantideva, Ati`sa, and Tsong kha pa
¢w for whom there is nocontradiction, but, rather, a profound
harmony betweennegation and affirmation, analysis and faith, and
wisdom andcompassion, leaving one to wonder whether the "logic
ofnegation" of the first two workings is, in fact, as limitedas Glass
suggests. On the other hand, the "essence" approachdoes not seem,
ipso facto, to guarantee such virtues aspositive desire and
compassionate engagement any more thanthe other workings; indeed, it
often has been argued that aconcept like Tathaagatagarbha,
misunderstood, may actuallylead to complacency, or even
amorality, therebyshort-circuiting the "logic of subtraction" and
inhibitingthe development (or, more properly, the discovery) of
thepositive emotions and ethical values required
forenlightenment. Like postmodern philosophers, Buddhists mayface
very real conceptual and psychological problems intrying to
reconcile deconstrucion with commitment, detachmentwith love, or
nonfoundationalism with ethical judgment ¢w butthe claim that one
perspective solves these problems whereothers do not is highly
debatable.p.360 Although there are ways in which I find Glass'
methodsproblematic and his argument undeveloped or unconvincing, itmust
be reiterated that the perspective from which I amapproaching
his analysis is essentially Buddhological, andopen to the
counterargument that the standards of historicaland terminological
fidelity that I am applying areinappropriate in evaluating a
work of creative, postmoderntheology. There, it priate in evaluating a
work of creative,postmodern theology. There, it might be argued, it is
perhapsless important to adopt a reading of tradition "only if itcan
be consistently supported through direct reference to thetext" than to
search imaginatively for a reading that merely"does not... contradict
the text" (p. 83) and opens for uspossiblities of interpretation
that speak profoundly to ourown situation. The latter is the style of
reading used bytheologians whom Glass admires. such as Mark Taylor,
and itis, in general, Glass' style as well. To contrast these twoways
of interpreting tradition, of course, implicates Glass¢w and all of us
¢w in the problem of deciding how modern (orpostmodern) Buddhist
"theology"ought to be approached. Whatare its sources of authority?
How are they determined? Howshould they be utilized? What should we
make of differencesbetween ways in which we might use Buddhist texts
and theways in which Asian Buddhists traditionally have used
them?These are important a priori questions for any
"Buddhistconstructive philosophy"; it is clear that Glass has
thoughtabout them, but his analysis would have been more compellingif
he had adddressed them more explicitly. Nevertheless, Working
Emptiness remains a book well worthreading and attempting to
understand. It is athought-provoking and highly creative
contribution tocontemporary Buddhist thought, which, whether we
agree ordisagree with Glass' methods and conclusions,
stimulatesreflection on the ways in which scholars and
philophersusually have understood Buddhist thought, the
relationbetween Buddhist and Western ideas, and the affective
andethical implications of the concept of emptiness. We only canhope
that, in future works, Glass will extend, deepen, andrefine the
fascinating line of analysis he has begun here.